Aaah, such nice days we've been having. High 60s to 70, sunny, calm breezes. The daffodils have sprouted. A walk around the yard today found swelling buds on the young spring-flowering trees.
I got the Summer House all cleaned out and ready for the buns that will go out there when the weather breaks for good. I reworked the poop chute so it can be more easily cleaned out. There isn't enough pitch for everything to roll off, so it has to be pushed. The way I had it, there was barely room for a pushing tool. I added a support rail leaving plenty of room to push out. It's also much sturdier. It tended to sag wherever the rabbits piled their toilet. Got all the feed cups washed and mounted. We are good to go. I plan to move them outside around the end of March.
I have one more unit to build, but it won't take long. After all the other remodeling, I had some 18x24 cages left over. I'm going to make a single-wide 3-tier unit in the center of the Summer House and use it for groups of weanlings. I can fit up to 6 small bunnies in one of those holes. When I get that done, I'll put up a new photo on the Barn page.
I'm not using the bin system out there anymore. I decided I didn't like it. Even though there were drain holes in the bins, they got pretty heavy after 2 wks. It was a soupy mess, the smell was bad, and the worms couldn't get to it to help break it down. It was also a breeding ground for flies, and if I let it go for 3 wks, the flies were awful. I removed the bins early last summer, and the difference was amazing. Less odor, and the flies weren't rampant. Means I have to shovel it out, but I can let it go a month or so, depending on how much work I want to do in one cleanout.
The baby head count went way down this past week. I lost some of the newest ones. I don't know why. The boxes were coming in the house at nite so it wasn't due to cold. Dreamboat Annie's litter of 2 blacks and 1 choc is now just 1 black. The other 2 didn't look right from day 1, they moved oddly. Maybe she trampled them. She's big and clumsy and this is her 1st litter.
I juggled kits around and now have only 2 boxes full. All the brokens except the charlie are with Broken Trust. I'm afraid I'm going to lose her 1 broken. It's very skinny. She has the 2 brokens from Broke N Happy x Dot.com and they look fine. Looks like they are black and blue. Annie has her black, and Broke N Happy's charlie, and Broken Trust's black. Whew, I have notes all over trying to keep all that straight!
Then I lost a 3 wk old himi to explosive diarrhea the other day. That happened overnight. It was the mid-sized kit in that litter. There's just the 2 sable pts left. 1 tiny and 1 huge buck. I took the nestboxes away from the older kits today. 1 had a poopy butt and that usually happens when they are spending too much time in the box. It get impacted very quickly if they don't move away from their toilet. So I remove the box around 3 wks and I see much less of that.
Where are the doe babies??? I've sexed all but 1 of the 3 wk olds and they are all bucks! This is not good. I wanted to move some of the older does on, but I can't if I don't get does to replace them.
tnt
